The present disclosure relates to the management of advancing motorists in roadway traffic. The detailed discussed herein relates generally to temporarily posted signs and signals to warn and stop motorists, and deals more particularly with traffic at or near crosswalks and intersections (such as those patrolled by crossing guards), as well as roadway construction sites (typically involving flaggers). In these and similar situations, such traffic control systems serve to temporarily stop traffic by direct intervention or remote control technology to afford safe pedestrian passage and/or roadway working conditions where moving vehicles are increasingly hazardous.
Improvements in this field are long overdue to facilitate traffic control and enhance safety of pedestrians, crossing guards, and motorists, as well. In a number of situations and venues, traffic may be required to stop intermittently, for example permitting schoolchildren to traverse a roadway or enabling highway construction crews to safely work. Emergency roadway events, too, may call for traffic management so needed attention can be given to treating injured passengers and removing wrecked vehicles. Typically, crossing guards and flag-men/flag-women (herebelow referred to as flaggers) do their best to bring traffic to a temporary yet safe stop for the safety of schoolchildren, workers and motorists alike. It is well documented that such duty is not without its own risk of hazards.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) officials estimate that a pedestrian is killed by a motor vehicle in the United States every 8 minutes. More shocking still, nearly five hundred of these unfortunate pedestrians are run down every year within the boundaries of designated crosswalks - - - and these incidents include a significant number of crossing guards. Similarly, highway construction flaggers are widely recognized as holding very high risk jobs. Rising levels of fatalities and serious injuries have driven several state government authorities to initiate safety campaigns on behalf of endangered flaggers and call for increased punishment for careless drivers who place them at peril.
With respect to school crosswalks, a frequently utilized system for getting drivers' attention at critical times of day (e.g., when children arrive and depart) has included permanently mounted flashing light standards posted at corners and/or crosswalks. These routinely include electronic timers that control the system operation. Too frequently pre-set timers activate at the wrong time. This operational flaw could be a result of power failure, human programming error, daylight savings time changes or any of a number of other glitches. In any case, caution lights or stop lights can flash authoritatively from their permanent standards, though at the wrong time of day. Moreover, for a variety of technical reasons, these lights may not flash at all.
Undependable signal systems may lead to false warnings. Motorists conditioned by sporadic false warnings may be disinclined to stop and simply speed through the posted zone. One reported example relates to a country school located in Grass Valley, Calif. where, during school year 2009-2010, a problem with a system timer reportedly resulted in flashing light standard functioning properly only about one week out of thirty five. Children who depended upon system reliability were placed at considerable risk. The inherent danger of automated, but undependable, traffic control systems cannot be overemphasized.
The use of flaggers and various forms of barriers, cones or other bollards to stop, slow down, or deter traffic at road constructions sites presents similarly serious problems for workers, motorists, pedestrians and the like. Stationing live-person flaggers to control traffic flow adds significant project costs and introduces issues of human judgment and personal risk. The only viable alternative to the use of flaggers is the installation of a reliable traffic signal system. Such systems tend to be a more permanent installation, but always require tear-down and re-installation as a construction project progresses along the roadway. A unique system that would overcome these two costly alternatives and improve the ability to control traffic as it slows, stops and starts again, is very much in demand.
Throughout the world there is an outcry for vastly improved roadway, crosswalk and crossing guard systems, particularly with the following attributes: usable in differing forms of traffic control such as schoolchildren crossing and roadway construction zones; cost-effective for economically challenged local governments; dependable in life-threatening environs and over extended periods of time; easily set-up, managed and transported by a lone individual; circumvents the numerous problems associated with existing devices and technologies.